Category — Flowering plants (that aren’t bulbs)

In the evening, as it opens, it’s one of the sweetest and most gentle scents, a combination of jasmine and orange blossom and gardenia, blended gently with its own mellowing agent. In the morning, it smells faintly of rubber balloon.

I’m a little bit of a sucker for the nicotiana genus, and I also have a weakness for fragrant plants. Add to that that I like carrying on heirloom plants, and you’ll have the sum of why I chose to order ‘Cranberry Isle’, an heirloom flowering tobacco from Select Seeds. I received on of their typically bouncingly healthful plants which has since boomed several sizes larger.

Marilyn Barlow, founder of Select Seeds, was kind enough to answer my email asking for more on the origins of this “new” heirloom introduction (actually, re-introduction). But this plant may be a mystery wrapped inside an enigma surrounded by a riddle, because the only information Ms. Barlow has is that Cranberry Isle came from an old garden in Maine, and was rumored to have come from an actual, land-and-sea Cranberry Isle.

Cranberry Isle is a hybrid of Nicotiana. sanderae and Nicotiana. forgetiana. When I saw this info on a garden list, I wondered at first if N. forgetiana was a joke; background information is often lost and forgotten, especially with heirlooms. So far I haven’t been able to find out how old it is (I haven’t been able to find out where its parents come from, either. Very worrying.).

Until I looked it up, I thought one of the parents might be Nicotiana alata, as the flowers look so much like jasmine tobacco. To my nose’s memory (sounds like a beginner piano piece), the smell of Nicotiana alata is different; more straight-ahead, piercingly sweet, not the gently rounded bouquet Cranberry Isle has.

The backs of my Cranberry Isle’s flowers are rose, while the insides open white (with perhaps the slightest pink tinge; it’s hard to see in the dusk), but by morning have turned pale blush pink. I haven’t gotten the multicolor effect promised in the seed catalogue, but perhaps that’s something that comes with time. Or varies from plant to plant.

While ravaged by earwigs (one of the few bugs that isn’t put off by tobacco’s insecticidal powers), this flowering tobacco gamely kept growing. It started blooming about a month after I’d received it in its tiny mailer pot, and I can expect it to go awhile.  I don’t know how long, because I can’t find that information anywhere. I’ll just have to research the old-fashioned way: wait and see for myself. Or get info from other gardeners who have grown it – maybe that’s you?

There’s something about clary. A luminescence in the way the sun catches the flowers. An appeal to the deeply-vein-carved fuzzy leaves.  And it’s an obliging plant; it’ll put on a show under almost any circumstances.

If you grow clary sage in native clay dirt, it will hang in and produce tough little plants that need no extra watering to survive. But the richer the soil, the more the water, the bigger and lusher they get; I’ve seen them at least three times the size of more poorly-fed ones, and fairly pulsing with green and silver.

If you have a limited water supply, and can’t or don’t want to amend your soil, it’s good to know the plants that will survive under those conditions. Clary sage is one of them. It’ll even grow in semi-shade, though it much prefers sun. The only places it won’t do well are full shade and boggy undrained sites.

Part of what gives the flower that luminescence, I think, comes from the different colors and textures involved. This closeup shows bracts and bi-colored flower

and this really close shot shows how the pink-purple of the bracts contrasts with the violet-purple (and white) of the flowers in a way that somehow blends to a light-filled haze when you back off from the plant.

Clary sage’s name supposedly originates from “clear eye”, which comes from using the seeds to take irritating stuff out of the eyes. Like chia seeds, clary seeds are covered with a mucilaginous coating that puffs up into a gel when moistened; this probably allowed the offending item to attach itself and get removed. Or  maybe the mucilage is soothing in itself, I don’t know. Culpepper (a 17th century English herbalist who made it his mission to get herbal knowledge out of the hands of the leeches and into the heads of the common folk) claims that making the mucilage into a kind of compress relieved swellings and tumors, and drew out splinters and thorns.  The leaves also have anti-inflammatory properties and, judging by the fact that he recommends them for “hot inflammations” (probably infections) they may be antiseptic as well.

I haven’t used clary for any of the purposes Culpepper recommends, but I’ve used clary medicinally in an informal way for years. One winter I had a bad case of flu. I wanted soup, but I didn’t want to go out and shop, so I had to figure out something with what I had. What I had was potatoes and clary sage plants, the only substantial green leaves still out there. I picked a couple, thinking that their hairiness wouldn’t make them much of a treat.

But I was wrong. The leaves cooked up tender and sweet, and flavored the potatoes beautifully; all I added was salt. And I swear I felt better after I ate that soup. I always eat it when I’m sick, and I always feel better after. Clary sage leaves are available all year round in my climate, although they taste better before the plant flowers.

Probably clary sage’s most famous medicinal use is in aromatherapy, where it’s recommended for creating relaxed euphoria. Many years ago I put that knowledge to good use; I was splitting up with a boyfriend I’d been living with, and as I made trips back and forth for my stuff, I sometimes had to work around the woman who was now living with him. I had planted clary sage in the garden, and it was in flower. I ran in to sniff some on one occasion, and, well, it worked. It was a friend to me in a time of sorrow, or at least severe humiliation.

Tastes differ, however, and so do senses of smell. While some people find clary sage’s scent resinous and musky, to others it smells like dirty socks and old sweat. These people are not likely to be soothed by the smell of clary sage. What’s your own response?

When Sylvia suggested that I write a sister piece to her post on California natives in Britain, I thought it was an intriguing idea. While researching it, though, I began to see why she wrote me that in the UK gardeners are used to plants being from somewhere else. Maybe it has to do with being an island with a long history of trade and migration? So many of the plants I looked up were “naturalized” in Britain, or even more obvious imports from elsewhere. Britain has been a seafaring nation for a long time, and one of the cargoes those ships brought back was plants.

In any case, as Sylvia points out, our climates are very different. I found only two plants in my garden which could be considered English natives, with another few possibilities if you allow for a little cheating.

The first, most obvious, is foxglove, at least the Digitalis purpurea foxgloves. I knew these were native to Britain as well as northern Europe because I remembered that from researching my foxglove series. I completely adore Digitalis purpurea in all its forms, a truly magical plant. One of the great things about D. purpurea foxgloves in my garden is that they don’t demand a lot of water (though they do need some; they’re not a xeriscape plant). They also like the semi-shade that most of my garden is in. My Shirley foxglove is down to those last few blooms towering over my head:

My Sutton’s Apricot seem to be sulking for some reason, so I’ll have to use pictures from the past.

The second plant I grow that’s native to Britain is Viola odorata, the common scented violet. Although, in my opinon, there is really noting common about violets. I grow a few cultivars; one is the highly-scented deep-colored violet that blooms every year in that protected spot by my friend (and uke player extraordinaire) Dan Scanlan’s garage. I’ve had a lot of fun making music in that garage, so that may be part of why I love them so much. But the flowers themselves have incredible charm. And this year – maybe because it was cooler longer? maybe because they just felt like it? – they bloomed for months. Well, at least two.

I also grow ‘Rosina’, a rose-colored cultivar. I like it, but somehow the deeper color sends me more. I used to have a white Viola odorata, but it disappeared.

Finally we come to the cheating part. ‘Penelope’, was bred by Joseph Pemberton in 1924 – in England. Does that count?

Do my David Austin roses, ‘Sharifa Asma’

and ‘Fair Bianca’

count? (I have more David Austin roses, but you get the general idea.)You be the judge.

Sylvia challenged herself to see how many of my native grow in her garden. This is her report. PB

One of the great things about blogs is that we can ‘travel’ to other countries and see plant communities in the wild, we can see them through the eyes of a like minded gardener.  I have learnt so much from blogs about how to grow plants or why something will not grow for me. This set me thinking
about how little I knew about Pomona’s area of America and the wild plants that grow there.  How many plants do I grow that are wild to Pomona?  I thought it would make an interesting post.

When I went to look for some of Pomona’s natives in my own garden, I found it a bit of a challenge; our climates are so different. In the West of England we rarely have a shortage of rain and drought years are few and far between so this is not something I consider.  I have lost more plants to being too wet rather than too dry.

Plant ‘hunters’ often tell us that we should see plants growing ‘in the wild’ to really understand how they grow, but for most of us that is not possible.  However we do know our own native plants and with a growing realisation that a lot of these make lovely garden plants able to copy with the local conditions and we are cultivating more of them.

The first plant I know comes from California is Californian Lilac, this is a favourite shrub of mine.  One of the few shrubs that I have more than one variety of.  I used to have 3 but lost one – I think because it got too wet!  We had an small underground water leak which also killed a Robinia
tree. Ceanothus is border line hardy in the UK but living in the south they seem to thrive, they are considered a good coastal plant here.  (Pomona do they grow by the sea in California?)  The two I have are both evergreen varieties Ceanothus azureus ‘Concha’ and Ceanothus thyrsiflorus var.
repens,  I hope Pomona is not going to tell me that these species don’t come from California!

My ceanothus have so many flowers because they are selected forms. The one in the back garden is more shaded and I think flowers for 2 weeks at the most.  But the one in sun in the front flowers for longer and is inclined to have a few stray flowers though the summer.  Interesting that it copes with more wind and wet here and doens’t have the hot
temperatures. I am surprised it isn’t grown more, possibly because it can die for no reason, as it is such a useful evergreen plant.  I don’t think that it will survive in some of the colder area of the UK. Which is why it is often recommended for the coastal areas where the winters are milder.  We all talk of plants for the winter hardiness but the summers really do make a difference. I struggle with Morning Glory (annual climber) because of the colder wet summers yet can’t grow blue poppies because of the heat!

I have to prune both these plants every year to keep them to their allocated spaces. Cocha likes to tap our bedroom window if I forget to trim it!  This winter, which was colder than we have had recently, one whole limb died but
it doesn’t seem to have effected the rest of the shrub. Ceanothus thyrsiflorus var. repens is a vigorous plant for me but I wouldn’t be without its blue fragant flowers in May.   The rest of the year both plants are a lovely green and blend into the garden, Californian Lilac is definitely a very beautiful garden plant and one I wish I had room to grow more off.

I have grown Calfornian Poppies (Eschscholzia californica) from seed and bought some seed to grow this year but it is still in the packet!  I will try to get some into the ground hopeing to get some flowers before the end of summer.  The first time I pulled some of these up I was amazed at the long root, good for finding and storing water I assume.  I get some volunteer plants from the original seed I planted and I like their ferny foliage and bright orange flowers.  Do these grow wild around you Pomona?

Now I got a bit stuck, what else is native to Pomona’s area of California, Lupins? I have had trouble with lupins the plants either die on me or are a horrible colour, I have tried seeds without any luck.  This year I have my first blue lupin flowering – I wish I had bought more plants and I have a packet of seed to try again. I know lupins come in lots of colours but I like blue and having seed pictures of blue lupins flowering in the wild I will keep trying to get a few blue ones.

The lupin is different from the wild types that grow in California, as it is a garden hybrid. (Interestingly we don’t use the ‘e’ in the common name)

Considering the very different climate, rain and temperatures that we both have, it is not surprising that I don’t grow many plants for this area.  It is amazing that so many plants will adapt to such different climate conditions.  It is fun to think about the countries our plants come from
especally when you ‘know’ someone that lives there.

Next post: I take up Sylvia’s challenge: how many English natives are in my garden?

When Rev. Wilks noticed a different kind of corn poppy in his garden, he decided to save the seed. Unlike most pure-flaming-red corn poppies, this one had a thin white edge.

Year after year, he planted from these seeds, saving more seed from the ones that showed the most unusual colorings and characteristics.

This old way of selecting seed takes time, but it led to the wonderful Shirley poppies, named after Rev. Wilks’s parish in Surrey. (Rev. Wilks also helped create the Shirley foxglove strain, still one of the finest today.)

Since 1880, when Wilks started out,  Shirley poppies have undergone even more transformations.

Originally, they started out as a flower that capitalized on the disturbed ground that farmers created when they sowed grain; that’s why they’re called corn poppies. (In Europe, corn is any grain; what we call corn in the U.S. is called maize in most of the rest of the world.)

The wild Papaver rhoeas is still a symbol for war veterans; in World War I, they filled the fields in southern France, where so many people died.

The poem In Flanders Field says: “In Flanders fields the poppies blow/Between the crosses, row on row.” Probably in earlier times these flowers had associations with death and resurrection, since they die back every year, then come back so spectacularly from the tiny hard seeds in late spring.

After Wilks created the strain of Shirley poppies, artist Sir Cedric Morris selected his own strain, ‘Mother of Pearl’, from his Shirley poppy seed.

I grew ‘Mother of Pearl’ which has mostly pastel tints, but also reverts to the original red form.

I could use the rainy season to water and grow them, without doing any watering of my own. Papaver rhoeas is a Mediterranean plant, like most spring bulbs and herbs that are popular in the western world.

‘Mother of Pearl’ grew almost chest-high, and lasted a few weeks.

Unfortunately, I can no longer find ‘Mother of Pearl’.

But that’s all right. ‘Falling in Love’, a new introduction to poppy culture, is also quite beautiful, and shares some of ‘Mother of Pearl’s’  pastel traits – as well as their tendency to revert to pure red. All of the pictures in this post are of different versions of ‘Falling in Love’.

All Papaver rhoeas cultivars are excellent low-water plants. They germinate well in cool, rainy weather; I plant them in fall or early winter, and they oblige in late spring and early summer, a few weeks of luminescent bloom. Sometimes, if it’s hot and dry, I give them a little water to encourage them to last longer.

Mixing the tiny seed with dry organic flower fertilizer distributes seed better; I put about a teaspoon of seeds in a handful of fertilizer. Otherwise, I tend to get clumps of short, stunted flowers, and lots of space in between.

Shirley poppies have come so far that the original color combination Rev. Wilks noticed has been reversed.

When my ‘Falling in Love’ poppies finish, I’ll be sure to collect the seed.

I’ll be curious to see what comes of my own seed selection.